Munguia’s Gamble: Facing Mbilli in a Nightmare Matchup Could Be His Only Way Back Toward a Crawford Payday

WBC interim super middleweight champion Christian Mbilli and Jaime Munguia are in negotiations for a fight in early 2026.

Munguia’s Risky Road Back

#3 WBC Munguia (45-2, 35 KOs) will be trying to position himself for a quick world title shot by facing interim champion Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 KOs). It’s a bad style match-up for the 29-year-old Eddy Reynoso-trained Munguia, but he has no choice.

Munguia has got to take the shot if he wants to line himself up for a big payday against undisputed champion Terence Crawford before he retires.

The news on the Mbilli vs. Munguia fight negotiations was revealed today by boxing insider Mike Coppinger on X.

Mbilli, 30, is coming off a 12-round majority draw against Lester Martinez in the fight of the night on the undercard of Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford on September 13, 2025, at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.

Mbilli-Martinez stole the show, outperforming the headliner between the aging Canelo and Crawford. The Montreal, Canada-based Mbilli likely would have won the fight if not for Lester Martinez’s illegal pushing off all night, which kept him on the outside. The referee should have warned and penalized Lester for the shoving.

Munguia hasn’t done much to deserve to fight for the interim WBC title. He was knocked out in the sixth round by Bruno Surace on December 14, 2024, in Tijuana, Mexico.

In their rematch, Munguia defeated Surace by a 12-round unanimous decision on May 4, 2025. However, Munguia’s A-sample from the fight turned up an adverse analytical finding for exogenous testosterone metabolites.

Munguia’s B-sample also showed an adverse finding. Munguia said he didn’t intentionally take any banned substances that would lead to a positive test. He was later cleared by the UK Anti-Doping agency. As such, Munguia’s victory over Surace stood.

Iglesias: The Contender Munguia Skipped

It would have looked better if Munguia had fought one of the contenders to earn a title shot against Mbilli, given the controversy over his last fight and his knockout loss to Surace before that. Having Munguia go up against the Cuban knockout artist Osleys Iglesias (14-0, 13 KOs) would have been the ideal way for him to earn a fight against WBC interim champion Mbilli.